102 – Cousin Nysari

The human kingdoms were too damnably big. “Do they just go on forever?” Zael muttered, watching green hills sail past through the window. “I’m starting to think there isn’t an end at all.”

He hadn’t been seeking a response, but Sarielle flipped a page of the textbook in her lap and replied idly anyway. “From northernmost point to southernmost, the human kingdoms dwarf our homeland ten times over. Our entire continent would fit in one half of one half of the Central Kingdom, and it’s the smallest of their territories.”

Zael had heard comparisons like that before and had known how ridiculously huge the human kingdoms were, but this expedition was putting the truth into perspective. Seeing was believing; firsthand experience trumped all. He and Sarielle had been flying along on this ‘Convoy’ for days now, and while that was hardly a substantial amount of time for long-distance travel, they were moving many times faster than a horse’s dead sprint—for hours and hours, stretching into days, and they had still yet to arrive.

At least the monotony would be ending soon. Half an hour or thereabouts, and they should arrive at Meridian. He couldn’t imagine making the same trip on horseback, or greateagle for that matter. No wonder the humans had put so much effort into making this hulking iron-artificed contraption. Without it, nobody would get anywhere. They’d be stuck in the kingdoms of their birth their entire lives.

“All that land, all those people, and they’ve made so little of themselves,” he said. He wasn’t sure where the thought spawned from, but he’d been ruminating over humans and their ways a lot recently—for obvious reasons, seeing how this was his first time here.

“The monsters are weaker,” Sarielle replied, still clearly only half paying attention. “Some places don’t even have monsters, ridiculous as that sounds. So there’s little need to fight and get stronger for the average person, especially when there isn’t social pressure to do so. First and foremost, people are products of their environment.”

Zael scoffed. He couldn’t let that slide. “Are you implying if Father or I were born here, we also would’ve ended up soft and lazy?”

Sarielle looked up from her textbook, seeming to register the conversation fully. His sister considered his question, opened her mouth to respond, and visibly reconsidered. Her lips pursed.

“Of course not, brother,” she said—and it was obviously a placating answer.

He sighed. “Don’t do that. Say what’s on your mind, Sari, even if you don’t think I want to hear it.”

“I’ve found that approach to rarely help anyone, and me least of all.”

He grunted. It was a good point. “Be that as it may, don’t lie to my face.”

She shrugged. “Then, yes and no. I think you would be surprised by how much your environment influences you, or me, or anyone. Then again, you and Father are uniquely… enthusiastic, even among the First Blood. So who can say?”

He preened under the praise, though Sarielle, odd girl she was, probably hadn’t meant it as such. Indeed, by the way she rolled her eyes and returned her gaze to the book in her lap, he knew for a fact she hadn’t been trying to convey a compliment.

“Regardless, I think saying that humans have ‘made so little of themselves’ is disingenuous,” she said. “Their social structure is different but not necessarily worse at fostering elites. Larger supportive populations means funneling more resources toward the top, whether directly or indirectly.”

“If we had ten times the people, we would have ten times the Titled—not merely be equals to the humans in that arena.”

He would have thought that an incontestable point, but Sari shrugged and responded, “Debatable. Opportunities would be spread thinner. Unless you mean our homeland would also be ten times as large, with an unchanged abundance of resources—and at that point we’d be wealthier and more fortunate than the humans, so it’d be an unfair comparison.” Another shrug. “Too many factors. What I’m getting at is that it’s more complex than what you’re suggesting. Human society functions fine, as does demon society. Different doesn’t mean bad.”

He huffed. Even as tolerant of Sari’s oddness as he was, his sister’s attitudes and beliefs could be off-putting. She didn’t even seem to care how lazy the typical human was. He would have figured that obvious disgrace would be something that even she would acknowledge and look down upon.

Because, really. Third and fourth elevation—‘silver-rank’—was respectable here? Third elevation was ‘above average’ for local adventurers, he had overheard, and adventuring was a rarity, not something all able-bodied people pursued at one point in their lives. The concept genuinely disgusted him. Being bestowed the ability to harden oneself and improve in such a fantastic manner, and simply choosing to not? They might as well spit in the gods’ faces.

But Sari had always had unusual views. Even if she hadn’t been born physically frail and uncoordinated, and then proved herself untalented in all matters martial or sorcerous even for having that disadvantage, he suspected she still would have grown up to be a little… off.

“What are you reading?” he asked, changing topics. The size and cover of the book had changed since he last glanced.

She lifted the tome to display it to him. “Principles of Civic Logistics, Volume Three,” she said, lips quirking. “It’s riveting material, I assure you.”

He grimaced. He shouldn’t have asked. She was still planning on taking that… that bureaucrat’s exam, then. Though he hardly thought she would have changed her mind about it. Once Sari decided on something, she followed through. She was still a Keresi.

“It’s what I’m good at, and find interesting,” Sari said shamelessly, reading his thoughts through his silence. “It’s how I can help the family. Houses don’t run themselves.”

And it was admirable when framed like that, making what she could of herself for the betterment of the clan, but still unpleasant to hear. Where Zael had taken to the axe, Sari had taken to paper and quills—something that would have brought her scornful looks even if she had been from merely a branch family of the Second Blood. As the daughter of Primus Mizar Keresi himself, her eccentricity had earned her outright disdain. That unseemly hobby might have been forgiven had she not also been one of the worst combatants Zael had ever seen. Even Father’s desperate personal attention hadn’t been able to drag her out of so much as third elevation. He hadn’t known it was possible to have less than zero fighting instincts, but his sister somehow did.

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She would have been a pariah if not for Father’s adamant support. Was one regardless, really. Most people just didn’t voice their distaste straight to her face. At least, not when Zael or Father was around. Which was why Zael tried to hover around his sister as much as possible, and probably why Father had sent her alongside Zael for this mission.

He changed topics again, latching onto that last line of thought. The mission.

“Nysari,” he said. “It still doesn’t make any sense. I’ve never heard of any Nysari. You would think we’d have met our cousin, or so much as have heard Uncle Malzier speak her name once in our lives.”